Netflix Still Releasing 'Black Mirror' Season 5 In Addition To 'Bandersnatch'

Black Mirror: Bandersnatch has left fans of the Netflix anthology series with a lot of questions, but not all of them are about the "Choose Your Own Adventure" style movie. They're about the series' eagerly anticipated fifth season, specifically if there will be one, and it seems like the answer is yes.

According to BuzzFeed TV Editor Scott Bryan, the fifth season of Black Mirror will arrive sometime in 2019 despite reports that Black Mirror: Bandersnatch was the whole fifth season in one, twisty interactive movie experience.

If you've been following along with news and rumors about Black Mirror's fifth season it's easy to understand where the confusion comes in. Back in October, Bloomberg reported that the dystopian anthology series would have a unique, interactive episode that would air before the end of the year. At the time, many assumed that this interactive episode would signal the release of the series' fifth season. This report gained a bit of steam earlier this month when a since-deleted tweet from Netflix revealed the Black Mirror: Bandersnatch release date to be December 28th. This lined up with rumors that Bandersnatch was the title of the reported interactive episode.

While both the release date and title proved to be accurate -- Black Mirror: Bandersnatch debuted on Netflix on December 28th -- it turned out that it was a movie and no other episodes or Black Mirror projects were released at the same time. This lead some, including the New York Times, to declare the film the lone episode of the season. Now that Netflix has seemingly confirmed that there is a genuine fifth season to come at some point in the new year, the question shifts to what fans might expect -- and it's not sequel episodes.

In the "Inside Black Mirror" book, series creator Charlie Brooker discussed the possibility that, at some point, the show might revisit some of the series' most popular episodes, though he specifically noted that things would only be revisited "if there was a compelling reason to do so." That didn't stop rumors of sequel episodes in Season 5, though, which prompted Brooker to reply in a now-deleted tweet "nope".

Whatever the plans for Black Mirror's fifth season, it's expected sometime in 2019. The franchise's first stand-alone movie, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, is now streaming on Netflix.

Are you glad there are still plans for a full fifth season of Black Mirror? Let us know in the comments below.